Many printheads used in printing systems, such as inkjet printheads for example, controllably eject drops of a liquid, such as an ink for example, from a tightly-packed arrangement of ejection elements onto a medium in order to form printed output. The printheads may be fabricated by depositing fluidic layers, such as layers for forming chambers of the ejection elements and/or otherwise routing the liquid, and thin-film electronic layers for controllably ejecting the drops, on a silicon die or wafer. During the fabrication process of many printheads, at least one optical target is formed on the printhead to facilitate alignment of at least some of these layers, or to provide a point of reference for other processing operations. It is desirable to minimize the size of a printhead, both to achieve high-quality printed output and to minimize printhead cost.